


Early Days

by chiiyo86



Category: Lynes and Mathey Series - Amy Griswold & Melissa Scott
Genre: Boarding School, Case Fic, Developing Relationship, M/M, Pre-Canon, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-24 23:13:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17109965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiiyo86/pseuds/chiiyo86
Summary: During their school days at Sts Thomas, Ned asks Julian to get a first year his stolen watch back.





	Early Days

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Settiai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Settiai/gifts).



> You didn't mark underage as a DNW but I hope it's still all right! Julian and Ned are fifteen in this fic, if that matters. Hope you enjoy this treat!

Julian’s instinctive reaction when Ned first brought up the matter had been irritation.

“Why should I care about some New Man’s pocket watch?” he asked off-handedly. 

“His name is Myers,” Ned said.

“Why should I care about his name?”

“Lynes,” Ned said in the tone that meant he thought Julian was being unreasonable. “I’m fairly sure that the watch was stolen. And I—”

“Things get stolen at Toms’,” Julian said acerbly. “We’ve both had things stolen from us. This is school tradition, remember?”

Ned ducked his head, his cheeks reddening from having his own words thrown back at him. Julian had thought this would be the end of it, but Ned proved himself surprisingly stubborn about that watch. The very next day, he mentioned it again.

“Myers is very upset over the loss of his watch,” he said at breakfast.

Even though Julian had assumed that Ned would let the matter drop, he hadn’t been able to curb his curiosity as to who that Myers chap might be, to capture Ned’s attention. He’d asked a New Man about it and a small, mousy boy with a pale shock of hair had been pointed to him. At fifteen, and after a rather substantial growth spurt, Julian thought that all the New Men were ridiculously small, but even by that standard Myers could be considered tiny. There was nothing noteworthy about him and it annoyed Julian that he didn’t understand why Ned would take a particular interest in him. And if Ned was bringing him up again, it meant that he was attaching some sort of importance to that diminutive New Man. 

“What’s it all about, Mathey?” Julian asked, exasperated. “What is it about Myers that makes him worthier than any other New Man who’s had their possessions stolen? For all we know, one of the prefects stole his watch.”

“If it’s one of the prefects, well—” Ned said, then shrugged. He knew as well as Julian did that if one of the prefects was the thief, there would be nothing they could do about it. “But if it isn’t, then I want you to get Myers’ watch back for him.”

“Why me?” Julian asked.

“Because you’re good at finding things.”

Julian bit back a smile at the rush of pleasure the compliment triggered. He _was_ good at finding things—he’d had to develop his skills, given the amount of items that got stolen in Sts Thomas—but knowing it and hearing Ned say it were two different things. It softened him enough that he opened his mouth to agree. He remembered in time that he wouldn’t really be doing it for Ned, but for a slip of a boy whom Ned had become fond of for some unfathomable reason. Ned was a bleeding heart, but he wouldn’t go through that much trouble for a New Man without a good rationale.

“I’ll do it, but only if you tell me why you care so much about Myers,” he said, lifting up his chin challengingly. 

Ned frowned and swept a look around him. Their schoolmates were all busy with breakfast, eating as much as they could before the prefects decided to end it, and no one seemed to pay them any mind. This didn’t appease Ned, who leaned forward and whispered, “I’ll tell you later.”

“All right,” Julian said, now getting intrigued. 

Ned told him while the two of them were walking through the school together. “Myers’ mother gave him the watch. She—she’s at Ticehurst,” he said in a voice so low that no one but Julian could have heard him. “He was crying about it the other day. It’s a good thing that I was the only one who saw him.”

“Oh.”

Shame doused Julian’s previous curiosity. It was no surprise that Ned had felt a kinship to Myers—Ned’s own mother had been threatened with the asylum often enough, and Julian knew what a toll his mother’s illness took on Ned. It was also unsurprising that Ned would feel nervous about broaching that topic where they could be heard, given what had happened last year when Nevett had learned about Ned’s mother and made dirty insinuations about her. Thank god Nevett was now gone, as well as Staniforth. The two of them had been the worse of the lot. The new prefects weren’t as bad, or maybe it was just that being third years made Julian and Ned less of a target. 

“I’m sorry,” Julian said earnestly. He hadn’t meant to make Ned feel rotten. 

Ned smiled at him in a way that let him know he was forgiven. It was a smile that lit up his whole face and never failed to make Julian feel warm inside. Ned was a smiling sort of chap, as a general rule, but Julian was fairly certain that this particular one had only ever been aimed at him. 

“Does it mean that you’ll do it?” Ned asked.

Julian rolled his eyes, but he could feel himself smiling back. “All right. You can tell your little New Man that I’m on it.”

\---

The first stage of Julian’s investigation had to be an interrogation of little Myers himself. Julian asked Ned to pass word to the boy that he would be waiting for him behind the library staircase. They needed to have a lengthy conversation, and a third year granting too much attention to a first year was bound to get one of them in trouble—which Ned should have damn well known, but it was too late to worry about that now. 

Even knowing that Julian was Ned’s friend and that he meant to help, Myers came to him showing signs of immense wariness. Julian remembered all too well being a New Man at Toms’, and he also remembered what it was like to be on the smaller side and everything that entailed, so he tried to be patient with the boy’s skittishness. 

“Mathey told me that your watch was stolen three days ago,” he said as an introduction. “Is that right?”

“Yes.” Myers nervously cast his eyes down. “Yes, sir.”

“I’m not a prefect, so don’t ‘sir’ me,” Julian said a little too brusquely, feeling unreasonably insulted by what Myers had meant as a show of respect. “And look me in the eye when you’re talking.”

Myers looked up slowly, his shoulders taut with tension, as though he expected some kind of trick. “I meant no cheek,” he said.

“I know you didn’t,” Julian said, trying to inject some gentleness in his voice. “I just need to ask you a few questions about your watch.”

“All right,” Myers said. 

“Anything distinctive about it, so I know that it’s the right one? Are your initials or your name engraved on it?”

“No. But there’s—there’s an enchantment. It’ll only open with my name.”

“Noted. When did you notice that it was missing?”

“In the morning. I keep it in my chest, with the rest of my belongings.”

Julian drew a little notebook from his pocket and started taking notes. “Is your chest locked?” he asked. “Or enchanted?”

“It’s locked, yes, but there’s no enchantment.”

If the chest was merely locked, then it was probably child’s play to force it open, Julian mused. At least it was for _him_ , and he wasn’t so arrogant as to think that he was the only one in school who’d figured out that a simple unenchanted lock would yield easily with a pocketknife. 

“Have you shown your watch to anyone?” he asked.

Myers’ eyes gave a little twitch that Julian suspected was an aborted eyeroll. “I’d only be asking for someone to steal it,” he said. 

Julian snorted. “Fair enough. So you didn’t show it to anyone, but one of your dormmates could have seen it, couldn’t they?”

“Maybe.”

“Who are the boys in the beds right next to yours?” 

“Chester Sharp and Wiley Collins. But they wouldn’t—” Myers cut himself off. He’d likely just realized that they _would_.

“Do you have reasons to suspect one more than the other?” Julian asked, feeling sympathy for the kid in spite of himself. It was in moments like these that he fully appreciated how damned lucky he was to have Ned. 

Myers shook his head. He looked miserable now, and Julian felt a twinge of guilt about it. But if Myers was as careful with his watch as he claimed to be, then it meant that the person who had stolen it was someone he knew well. That wasn’t Julian’s fault. 

“I’ll get you your watch back,” he said to the boy, who smiled at him faintly. 

“Mathey did say that you were a good person,” Myers said. “And that you were brilliant.”

Heat rising to his cheeks, Julian snapped his notebook shut. “Now get away from here,” he said gruffly. “It’s better if no one knows that we’ve talked to each other.”

\---

Of course, ‘no one’ didn’t include Ned. That evening, in the secrecy of their attic hiding place, Julian shared with him the details of his interrogation of Myers.

“What’s your next step?” Ned asked.

“Whoever is the thief must be keeping the watch somewhere they deem safe. Either in his chest, or on himself, or in some other hiding place. I’ll look through Sharp and Collins’ chests first.”

“Be careful,” Ned said, his brows knitting together.

“Of course,” Julian said.

He took a swig of the sherry he’d nicked from the junior masters, then held out the bottle to Ned, who shook his head. Julian leaned back against the cushions they’d piled up on the rough, cold floor, feeling the warmth from the alcohol spread in his stomach. He looked over at Ned, whose face, in the wavering light shed by the candles, looked like it had been drawn by a master painter.

“Myers was badly scared of me,” he said. He hadn’t realized that it still bothered him so much until he’d said the words out loud.

“He’s a first year,” Ned said. “Don’t you remember being a first year? There isn’t a moment when you’re not scared.” He snorted, his lips stretching into a smile. “Maybe not you, I guess. You were never scared of anything.”

Julian remembered walking into the prefects’ parlor for the first time, his stomach a bundle of painful knots. He took another swig from his bottle.

“I wouldn’t have hurt him,” he said.

“He can’t be sure of that,” Ned said gently. “Thank you for doing this, by the way.”

“You’re welcome,” Julian said. 

He remembered Myers saying that Ned had told him Julian was brilliant, and a good person. Many people would probably have agreed with the first assessment, but only Ned would think the second one. The warmth that had pooled in Julian’s stomach descended lower.

“Do you feel like—” Ned said, trailing off.

At the color on his cheeks, Julian didn’t need him to finish his sentence to know what he was talking about. He’d been about to suggest the same thing, so he nodded, trying to conceal his eagerness, and put down the bottle of sherry. 

“Come here,” he said, patting the cushions next to him.

They each handled their own trousers, a little clumsily on Julian’s part because of all the sherry he’d drunk. He’d started hardening as soon as Ned had uttered his suggestion and his stiff prick jumped in his hand when he took it out. Ned shuffled closer to him, so that their hips touched. He cleared his throat and asked, “All right?” Julian nodded vigorously. 

Ned’s hand on him made his toes curl and he closed his eyes for a second, before he remembered that it was supposed to be a mutual thing. His hand crawled over Ned’s lap and he took Ned’s equally hard prick in his hand. They were both practiced enough at this that they didn’t need to communicate out loud to start pumping their hands at the same time.

They’d begun doing this a few months ago, and Julian privately thought that it was quite the best thing ever. He’d already felt like Ned’s presence at Sts Thomas was the only good thing about being at school, but this made it even more of a certainty. They weren’t stupid enough to let a soul know about it—something that felt this pleasurable must surely be against the rules—but if the secret made Ned nervous, Julian found it thrilling. It was better than all the petty larceny that he did in his silent crusade to get back at this hellhole of a school; these were moments when he had Ned unreservedly all to himself, and no prefect could be allowed to take that away from them.

Ned’s breathing sped up, as well as his hand on Julian’s erection. The sherry rolled in Julian’s stomach and his balls tightened in warning. Ned’s body was a length of warmth against his side, and when Julian glanced at him, he saw that a flush blotched Ned’s face and trailed down his throat. Julian didn’t want to come so soon. Ned’s hand always felt better than his own, and he was endlessly fascinated with the way Ned’s penis felt under his touch—how it twitched, and stiffened, and dribbled, a warm, living thing with a mind of its own. Julian was overwhelmed by a brutal desire for more sensations, more of Ned’s reactions. It was cold and drafty in the attic space, and he shivered. Ned was the only warm thing in there and Julian was drawn to him like ants to sugar.

“Ned, I want to—”

“Wh—what?” Ned said before he gasped, his mouth opening wide as though he wanted to swallow an apple.

Julian tightened his fingers at the base of his prick. “Don’t come yet. I want to try—”

Without giving himself time for second-guessing, Julian swept a leg over Ned’s lap and straddled him. Despite his recent growth spurt, Ned was still a lot taller than him, and this was the first time he’d ever needed to look up at Julian. This made Julian hardened further, his erection squeezed between his stomach and Ned’s. The potential for friction was much greater in that position and Julian inwardly congratulated himself for his idea. What if—

He shifted his hips until his hard penis was rubbing against Ned’s own and was gratified with a low groan from Ned.

“Sshh,” Julian said, pressing a hand over his mouth. “We don’t want anyone to hear us.”

Ned shuddered against him, and he didn’t try to push Julian’s hand away so Julian figured he could leave it there. He rolled his hips experimentally, felt Ned twitch and did it again. Ned bucked against him, hips jerking forward. His arm looped around Julian’s waist to draw him closer, until they were chest to chest and Julian could feel Ned’s heartbeat gallop behind his ribs. They rutted against each other in clumsy, uncoordinated movements, making a mess of both of their shirts, but Julian couldn’t bring himself to care. 

“So good, so good,” he panted against Ned’s neck while Ned made muffled sounds from behind his hand. 

Once they’d both come, they cleaned each other sluggishly. One of the advantages of their mutual pleasuring was that it made it so much easier to sleep afterward, although they had to be careful not to fall asleep in the attic space. That night, though, Julian was plagued with dreams of Ned’s big, warm body grinding against his, and he woke up with sticky underwear. 

\---

Cricket practice was when Julian decided to search through the chests of Myers’ dormmates. For reasons that he’d never been able to figure out, cricket was an activity that focused everyone’s attention, even those who didn’t play. Ned had tried to explain to him many times what was so attractive about hitting a ball or looking at other people doing it, but to no avail. Nevertheless, Julian was glad for cricket when it gave him opportunities to snoop around a little.

On the familiar way to the first years’ dorm room at Martyr’s, Julian found himself growing unexpectedly uneasy. A cold mass weighed his insides down like a bag of stones, almost as though he were sent back to that nightmarish first year just by walking the same path. He shook himself and let his fingernails bite the palms of his hands. This wasn’t the moment to get distracted. 

Myers’ bed was identical to the others, but he’d told Julian that it was the fifth from the door. His pocketknife in hand, Julian forced open the chests of Myers’ dormmates Sharp and Collins. He swiftly looked through them, but found nothing more than the usual pants, shirts, socks and underwear, as well as pictures, pens, bottles of ink and books. Rocking back on his heels, Julian gave himself a moment to think. If he was fast enough, then he might have the time to look through the other chests. It might be that one of Myers’ other dormmates had caught the boy locking his watch away. 

He had the time to search the other chests. He even looked under the mattresses and patted the pillows, but his efforts revealed themselves fruitless and he left the room frustrated. As he walked out of the building, he was so deep in thoughts that he startled when Ned called out for him.

“Hey, Lynes!” In his cricket outfit, red and disheveled, Ned trotted up to Julian until they were in step. His jersey was stained with green and brown, so he’d probably taken a tumble on the field, but at least he wasn’t bleeding from anywhere. “Any luck?” he asked in a conspiratorial whisper. 

A drop of sweat ran down Ned’s temple, following the curve of his jaw. Julian looked away, feeling his insides flutter as if they contained a cloud of butterflies. Maybe he was hungry; he’d barely eaten anything at breakfast.

“No luck at all,” he said. “I looked in all of the first years’ chests, but I didn’t find anything.”

“What are you going to do, then?”

“Follow Sharp and Collins around,” Julian said. “When you steal something that shiny, there’s no way you don’t have the urge to look at it sometimes. Myers says there’s an enchantment on it that’ll keep the thief from opening it. Our thief will be working on that too.”

“Are you sure that one of them took the watch?”

“I’m not, but they’re the most likely to have seen Myers handle his watch, and I have to start somewhere. Also, there’re two of them, and two of us.”

“What do you mean?” Ned asked suspiciously. 

“We’re going to follow them around.”

“What? But I—”

“You’re the one who wanted to help Myers, aren’t you?” Julian asked with a raised eyebrow, which made Ned sigh deeply. 

“All right,” he said, flicking sweaty hair out of his eyes. “Who am I supposed to follow?”

“Let’s toss a coin for it.”

\---

Julian ended up watching over Wiley Collins, a gangly red-haired boy with too big hands that foreshadowed him growing into someone as big as Ned. Julian couldn’t follow him around all the time, as he had classes and chores that took up a lot of his time, but he did his best to shadow Collins as often and as closely as he could. It was an utterly boring task. Collins went to the library, carried over his own chores, horsed around with his year mates and did his best to escape the prefects’ notice. In other words, he acted like a perfectly normal first year. Maybe he had a whole other life of mystery and action when Julian couldn’t watch him, but there was no way for Julian to know that. Meanwhile, Ned wasn’t having any better luck with his own assignment. 

“Maybe it’s not either of them,” Ned said after a few days of frustrating spying.

“Maybe, but we can’t have eyes on them all the time, so we can’t be sure. Unless—”

“Unless what?” Ned asked. “You have that look on your face. I don’t think I’ll like your idea.”

“They’re first years. Scared all the time, as you said. What if we used that fear to our advantage?”

Ned narrowed his eyes. “By doing what? You don’t want us to rough them up, do you?”

“No, just intimidate them a little. Just so that they’ll confess, or at least let something slip.”

“What if they’re innocent?”

“They’ll just think that we’re Senior Men bullying them for some mystifying reason. Nothing here ever makes sense.”

“I don’t like it,” Ned said, shaking his head. “I don’t want to act like—”

Ned let his sentence die there, but Julian didn’t need to ask to know how he’d wanted to finish it. He didn’t like it either; he liked it so little that the thought had his stomach churn with nausea. But he’d promised Myers that he would get his watch back; he’d said to Ned that he would do it. Maybe it was stubborn of him, but he wanted to be true to his word. 

“We’ll go easy on them,” he said. “I—I’ll do it. You’ll just stand at my back, because you’re—”

Ned’s height would make him intimidating to puny New Men who didn’t know he was probably the nicest person in this godforsaken school. Julian swallowed back the words, though, because Ned’s expression had darkened and he wouldn’t appreciate Julian mentioning how big he was when he did everything he could to mitigate it. 

“Trust me,” he said. “Those first years will be no worse for wear.”

Ned eventually sighed and agreed, but Julian didn’t feel the satisfaction he usually did when he won an argument. 

\---

On comparing their notes about Sharp and Collins, Julian decided that they should start with Sharp as the most likely suspect.

“What makes you think that?” Ned asked.

“I’ve been following Collins for days, and he really doesn’t strike me as someone with a weight on his conscience.”

“Maybe he doesn’t feel bad about it.”

“Maybe not, but you’ve lost Sharp once when you were following him. He could have gone for the watch then.”

“Either of them could have done anything when we weren’t there to watch them,” Ned said. “But we have to start somewhere, I guess.”

New Men tended to band together for safety, but Sharp was a solitary fellow and it wasn’t difficult to catch him unattended. As soon as he saw Julian and Ned move for him, he started casting uneasy looks around him, but the hallway was presently deserted. 

“You’re Chester Sharp, aren’t you?” Julian asked him while Ned loomed silently behind him.

Sharp was a round-faced boy with permanently humid lips. A perfect target for the prefects or for Senior Men with a mean streak, especially when combined with his tendency to isolate himself.

“Yes?” he said in a high-pitched voice. It echoed eerily in the vast, empty hallway.

“We’ve come to ask you to give it back,” Julian said, trying not to sound too harsh. The first year already looked about to pee himself and it felt cruel to overdo it.

“Give what back?” Sharp asked shakily.

“You know what,” Julian said, looking closely for the boy’s reaction. “Give back what you took.”

Sharp’s face shuttered, his expression becoming more stubborn than Julian would have expected. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said in a tone that convinced Julian that he _did_ know. 

The pity that he’d felt earlier evaporated. “You’re a thief,” he said, sudden anger making his voice growly. He felt Ned shift uneasily behind him. 

“Lynes, old man—” he said, putting a hand on Julian’s shoulder.

Julian shrugged it off. “Give back what you stole,” he said to Sharp.

Sharp nervously licked his lips. “Everyone steals here.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to do it too. Give it to me.”

“Or what?” Sharp said, putting his chin up, but Julian could see his uncertainty in the wobbly line of his mouth. 

“Or I’ll tell the prefects,” Julian bluffed—this was a line he wouldn’t ever cross, but Sharp didn’t know that. “I’ll tell them that you stole it from me. A New Man’s word against a Senior’s? You know how good your odds will be.”

To his credit, Sharp held Julian’s eyes for longer than could have been expected from a New Man. It meant that he had pluck, but also that his self-preservation instincts were faulty. But the power dynamics wasn’t in his favor and he had to know it. Eventually his shoulders sagged and he dropped his eyes.

“Here,” he mumbled, shoving a hand in his trousers’ pocket and pulling out a pocket watch small enough to fit in his closed fist.

He gave it to Julian, who gave it a cursory glance to check that it matched Myers’ description of his stolen watch. 

“Get away from here,” he told Sharp with one last glare. 

Sharp had enough good sense to bolt without forcing Julian to repeat himself. As soon as he was gone, Julian felt a wave of lassitude overcome him. Could he really blame Sharp for taking whatever shiny thing had caught his eye? Stealing New Men’s possessions was an honored school tradition. The boy had only emulated his elders.

“Are you all right, Julian?” Ned asked him. His hand was back on Julian’s shoulder and Julian could feel its warmth seep into his body. 

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I’m fine. Tired of that place, that’s all.”

Ned’s grip on his shoulder tightened. “I know. Do you think that it’s Myers’ watch?”

“It seems unlikely that Sharp just happened to steal a different watch when his dormmate’s went missing.” He examined the watch again; as Myers had said, there were no initials engraved on it. “Myers said that there was an enchantment on his watch that made it open with his name. I imagine he meant that you have to spell it in the metaphysical alphabet. His mother must have taught it to him. Do you think you could manage to open it?”

“I don’t know,” Ned said, but Julian could tell his interest was piqued by the challenge. 

Toms’ teachings of metaphysics were superficial and purely theoretical, but both Julian and Ned had tried to practice on their free time, although the results of their hard work were mixed at best. 

“We could just give it to Myers and he’ll tell us if it’s the right watch,” Ned said.

“Or we could go to the attic and try to figure out this enchantment,” Julian said. “Just to give it a try.”

Julian smiled up at Ned hopefully until Ned rolled his eyes. They were cutting it close to supper time and would be beaten if they were late, but the idea of an actual metaphysical challenge spurred them on. In the privacy of their attic hiding place, where they kept a wooden stick to use as a wand, they tried in turns to open the watch.

“I’m guessing the enchantment uses the square of the Sun,” Julian said, frowning down at the watch, which sat at the center of a cushion. “It can’t be too complicated, or Myers would never manage to open it.”

Complicated or not, none of Julian’s shoddily traced sigils managed to trigger the enchantment. 

“Maybe it’s not Myers’ watch,” he said, but he didn’t really believe it.

“Let me try,” Ned said, trying to wrestle the stick out of Julian’s hand.

“It’s almost supper,” Julian said, holding the stick away so Ned would have to drape himself over Julian’s lap to reach it. It felt oddly good to have Ned pressed against him like that.

“I’ll be quick,” Ned said. “Come on, Lynes!”

His arms were too long for Julian to be able to really keep the stick away from him, so Julian gave it up. He felt the loss of Ned’s weight and warmth sorely, but watching the look of intense focus on Ned’s face was almost as enjoyable. Ned nibbled his lower lip as he slowly, meticulously traced metaphysical letters in the air. The pink tip of his tongue poked out. A flash of light made Julian blink, and he grabbed for the watch before Ned could do it, then opened it without difficulty. 

“You did it, Mathey!” he exclaimed, almost as excited as if he’d done it himself.

Ned’s face flushed with pleasure. “So it’s really Myers’ watch,” he said.

“As if there was any doubt about it,” Julian said, elbowing him in the ribs. “Let’s give it back to him.”

\---

To Julian’s intense mortification, getting his watch back made Myers start weeping. Fortunately, they’d had the presence of mind to choose a secluded spot behind the school’s chapel for their transaction, because openly crying in public was a sure way to attract trouble.

“Now, now,” Ned said awkwardly, patting Myers’ shoulder. “There’s a good chap. Nothing to cry about.”

“Thank you,” Myers said tearfully, clutching the watch against his chest. “I thought I wouldn’t get it back. My mother said—”

They would never know what Myers’ mother had said, because the boy started blubbering again. Julian wanted to take him by the shoulders and shake him until he stopped, but it would ruin the moment and make Ned unhappy with him. 

“It’s all right,” Ned tried again. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket. “Here, blow your nose and wipe your eyes. You don’t want anyone to notice you’ve been crying.”

Myers managed to stop crying and to wipe his face into a semblance of presentability. He should be all right if he kept his head down until the redness about his eyes disappeared. Once he’d calmed down, Julian and Ned sent him on his way.

“We handled this rather well, I think,” Julian said, leaning against the stone wall of the chapel. A gust of wind blew his hair in his eyes and he blinked against it. “We found the watch in a matter of days.”

“And didn’t have to terrorize anyone too badly to do it,” Ned said with a sardonic curve to his mouth. 

“I think that Sharp got out of it lightly,” Julian said with a huff. 

“What could we have done, though? Snitch on him to the prefects?”

“No, of course not.” Julian sighed. “It’s just—what Sharp did is the perfect illustration of everything that’s awry with this school! What he did was wrong, but the rules here are so twisted that telling on him would be even more wrong. That’s so unfair! I just think that—what? What is it?”

Ned was watching him with a strange expression, as though looking at something beyond ordinary perception. He bit his lip, gave their surroundings a look and then leaned forward.

“Ned?” Julian asked uncertainly, Ned’s closeness making his heart pound hard.

Ned’s kiss stole all the breath from Julian’s lungs. Language flew out of his brain, and, for the first time in his life, he had no words left at all.


End file.
